Archive for October, 2008

There is a story today at Raw Story (read here) about how Joe the Plumber is promoting absurdest fear mongering against Obama. Fox news is actually critical of him and McCain’s closeness to him for doing such a thing. Wow. Fox news NOT sticking up for whatever insane spin the GOP is putting on something? Has the world gone upside down?

No. This not the first time in recent memory that Fox has been drinking some Obama koolaid and criticizing McCain. It’s all part of the plan. Fox news is NOT a GOP mouthpiece at all it turns out. They are opportunistic mouthpieces of ‘those in charge.’ Nowadays, ‘those in charge’ are all about getting Obama, the black Jesus, into office to further the goals of the global elites. I think you will see some of the intensely Republican rhetoric waning on that network and it will spun as ‘see, we have always been fair and balanced, you just weren’t paying enough attention.’ You will still have your Bill O’s and Hannity’s on there to preach to the Nascar type choirs, and they will be all about discrediting Obama, but I think you will see perhaps a softening on the nasty blows. Until of course it’s the appointed time for Obama to be the villian and the tide to turn against him. Might be 1 year, might be 6..who can say. I think it will explain itself , but so far as the entire Fox news brigade, I think you will see some centering effect on it overall, but when you start out SO far on the right, it’s likely to never be ‘fair and balanced’ at all.

New article out talking about the dangers of terrorists using twitter. Read it here

Based on the headline you would think that intelligence has found al-Qaida using Twitter, right?
Ah ha, but read the actual article… It’s not terrorists using it, it’s people reporting about an earthquake ,GASP, faster than the MSM. It’s also activists using it to try and get around totally un-Constitutional ‘free speech zones’ during the RNC. The article blatantly says that “Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives.” So now if you have an extremist ideology , code for pretty much anything not pimped by the state-run U.S. media, you are being labled publically as a terrorist. Couple that with the whole Northcom Army for operations against the American public, and it’s plain to see that ‘They’ are planning to move soon against those with unpopular opinions.

Here’s the executive summary: If you have an un-popular opinion you are a terrorist. You are a terrorist if you try to voice or spread those views using online communications and the Army is watching you. So, if you are listening authorities: Fuck you. The First Amendment is non-negotiable.

A Pennsylvania woman has been ordered by her township to tear down a shed which is shielded from outside pollutants that keeps her safe from her ‘environmental illness.’ MyWay News article

Now, the big reasoning behind this is the couple’s running afoul of zoning laws and the perceived damage to surrounding neighbors’ property values. The town’s position is that the woman’s malady is not real or physical but a mental problem. Regardless, her not being in her ‘bubble’ causes her great pain. So the issue at hand is which is more important: a person’s health and well-being or property values? Whether or not her illness is an actual physical problem, if it is apparent that her well-being is affected by not being in her area then the township is infringing on her most basic right of all: existing.

Now, we don’t know the real story behind this, maybe these people are loud, obnoxious and generally causing problems in their town all the time, but we can’t be sure with the paltry coverage offered here. Maybe there is more going on than is being reported. This is just another step of taking people from their property, same as the imminent domain Supreme Court ruling of a few years ago that lets local governments to take someone’s property to allow a business to setup in it’s place to increase tax monies.

On the face of the available evidence though, this is just a crazy precedent to set. Let people be!

The latest in what is just a comedy of errors for both major candidates, Joe Biden says Obama will invite a ‘testing’ of his abilities within the first six months of his presidency. NY Post Article I am thinking that’s not the best possible message to send to the American people or potential threats abroad. Of course, it could also be what is known as ‘telegraphing the punch.’

Yes, we all know Biden is famous for putting his foot in his mouth (let’s not forget he was the one saying the racsist comments about Obama during the primaries) but it’s the latest in a pattern of missteps of both candidates. A many pivotal turns, both campaigns have seemingly done the worst possible thing to help their cause. Obama picking Biden, McCain picking Palin, letting Palin speak aloud, letting Biden speak aloud, harping on Joe the Plumber who apparently has ties to Keating and so on and so on.

Why does it seem that each campaign is out to scuttle it’s own chances? These things are not just simple gaffes. Dozens of people are involved before anything comes out of the mouths of any candidate, and probably many more are involved with decisions like picking running mates, deciding what position to take on issues or what content goes into an ad. These people do not exist inside a vacumm. Quite the opposite actually. It’s almost as if they are playing a game to see how badly they can screw up and have the polls stay virtually the same. It must be fun to just do assinine stuff and see how deluded people are that don’t see it. The populace is stupid and they are having fun with it. I’m glad someone is.

We gave up $700 billion ($843b or something with the added pork to get it to pass) against HUGE public outcry to ensure that our economy keeps cranking along. Guess what? It isn’t.

Yes, gas is cheaper you say (thank the GOP for keeping prices down just in time for elections…happens every time) but the bottom line is that we helped no one, just gave the rich assholes a couple of more days to sell off everything. Once it’s all tanked, they can buy up EVERYTHING for pennies on the dollar. They did the same thing in the days of Napoleon. News of Napoleon’s defeat got back to the bankers BEFORE the British government so the rumor was started that he was victorious and this news drove the British economy into the toilet. It was promptly bought up and then once the real news of Napoleon’s defeat arrived, the once penny per stock was now back up, way up. That’s how this is done.

And it’s happening to us right now. It’s further consolidation of wealth and power and we are the sorry folks that get stuck with the bill. Pelosi is running around wanting another $300b for a second phase of the bailout, this after the mini-bailout of only $45b for the automakers and the ‘we don’t have to ask anybody anyway’ Federal Reserve’s plan to print all the companies need for easy loan. Of course, printing money out of thin air does what? to a currency? Why it makes it worth less and less, that’s what. When they ask for taxpayers’ money , they smile so broadly because it’s funny for us to pay for our own destruction.

The stock market reads like a Tom DeLay lie detector test and all that is happening now is the wiping out of average people’s retirement funds. Those able to save some back instead of counting on the non-exisistent Social Security now have nothing. The big dogs are still ok, but everyone else is screwed. ‘Well, it’s saving us jobs’ is a bullshit argument too. If profit margins shrink, it doesn’t matter. Companies will go ‘nice doing business with you, sorry gotta run’ and still ship those jobs overseas to keep the margins safely padded. I can pay Joe American $15 per hour with benefits OR pay Chinese Child $1 per hour , no benefits and leave my price on my goods the same! Yay me! I should get a bonus for increasing the margin!
Of course that means that while Americans will keep digging themselves into a hole with credit cards etc… to still try to buy those goods, in the end it will eventually burst. Like it is today. The company now will re-brand the goods for a Chinese market, build it up , bleed it dry and move onto the next economic power. They are like ticks spreading from host to host and our American dog is just about dead.

Maybe the Chinese will be smarter than us though and not actually pay for the last bullets to be fired into their backs.

Here is an article about the steps being taken to protect children from registered sex offenders: Washington Post

This is a matter of which I am on the fence about. While I certainly want to protect children from sick predators, I can see where this is one of those everyone is equal and free …except you. No one wants child molesters on the streets or living in their neighborhoods, but what if, one of these people got whatever was sick in their heads fixed and they really don’t pose a threat anymore? What if they have paid their debt to society and really just want to get on with their lives? Putting their name, address accessible to anyone on the internet to find and marking their yards with Scarlett Letters is not an intrusion of their privacy? Now I know that if they were an animal that raped young children with no remorse I sure would like to know where they are so we can keep an eye on them. Of course if they are that suspect still, maybe they should still be in prison or put to death!

What if they were branded a child molester because they were 18 and knocked up their 17 year old girlfriend and the parents prosecuted? Ok, now what if he was 18 and she was 14? He was 40 and she was 16? Where’s the line? Some stand out as immediatley creepy, others are pretty gray aren’t they? Every state has it’s own laws on this so what’s acceptable in Arkansas might not be the same as California, or Utah and so forth. And why is it only sex offenders? What about burglars, or murderers, extortionists, arsonists, drunk drivers or speeding ticket receipients? For some reason those folks are afforded their privacy (well at least more than the sex offenders) and not hounded for the rest of their lives.

Either a person should be deemed safe or not in society, but to expect someone to be set free and then make them loudly proclaim themselves as a past criminal or otherwise a threat to children doesn’t do anyone any good. Most of these programs are pretty easily ‘gotten around’ just by not registering it seems, so why punish someone that is trying to do the right thing? The real dangerous ones are going to go off the map, get a job in a daycare or school and continue to do what they are doing. And let us not also forget that the majority of child abuse cases involved someone in their family, not just a random Freddy Kruger type wandering around.

Clean up the rules so folks really know what they are dealing with and for god sakes, keep the real monsters off the streets ,better yet, dead if proven guilty 100%. You would have a lot more room if you maybe let the pot smokers out of jail and gave the child molesters their rooms. Then make potheads have signs in their yards, so the rest of us know where the party is! It’s easy to say ‘if you do the crime, you have to pay the consequences’ but just think about how it would be if we applied this concept evenly, especially the next time you get a speeding ticket. You probably wouldn’t want anyone to be able to look up your address and name on the internet because you ‘threaten the lives of others with recklessness in a motor vehicle’ and should be kept an eye on, lest you speed through your neighborhood and kill a playing child. It’s a slippery slope.

For everyone that is decrying McCain and all about freedom loving Obama, remember one of the big, but often un-discussed, tenets of the Democratic party: mandated government service. Clinton’s Peace Corps deal to help the jobless rate is now reflected in Obama’s recent statements of having women sign up for Selective Service. Under the Democratic more outright socialist outlook, people will be expected to perform under government service programs in return for the state’s increasing ‘charity’ of giving you healthcare etc…

We already are slaves to the state under the income tax laws , I don’t know what else to call it, and under the benevolent guidance of democrats we will become even more enslaved. Either through increased taxes (meaning a higher percentage of worktime going directly to the government) or outright mandatory service requirements (in order to vote, one must be a Citizen! shout out to the Starship Trooper fans out there) we will only become more enslaved. if it turns out that we can’t pull out of Iraq (see how this turns out!) and we ‘need to increase the presence in Afghanistan, a draft is looking and more certain. Either side winning will not change this.

Am I saying Obama is bad and you should vote for McCain then? HELL NO!

It certainly would be nice to be able to vote for a valid 3rd party candidate that might stand a snowball’s chance in hell, but that’s not likely to ever happen. Even our 3rd party candidates these days are ‘insiders’ that if somehow elected would not be any better than what we already have. Bob Barr (Libertarian) was CIA for crying out loud! Ron Paul is backing Chuck Baldwin, a blowhard Christian fundie that is all for the Constitution, except that part about freedom of religion etc… Cynthia McKinney, probably not a bad choice, except she would have everyone under the eco-warrior mode of paying new taxes on our carbon dioxide output (i.e. literally taxing us to breathe.)

Too bad we don’t have a No Confidence system in place. Of course, with the way the media is controlling everything and people’s attention spans shortened to milliseconds, maybe that’s not the way to go. We would never have a President because we would be constantly changing our minds based on whatever 20/20 had a story on that week.

None of the above would be my choice but that’s not especially productive either.